I have yet not gone through the latest list, but while going through the original one, I was quite amazed by how the observations made by Sigmund Freud (click) about nine decades ago, have still held true. I have had the fortune of reading initial parts of the English translation of The Interpretation of Dreams, and the first time I had read it, I was dumb struck by the intelligence of that person. And on reading about his ground-breaking ideas (apart from those on dreams) of psychoanalysis (click), ego-defense mechanisms (click) and psychosexual development (click), I was totally floored! Each time I read about him, I only wonder, how could a person feel, observe, analyze, document, and subject to verification so much in one lifetime! No wonder, I was not surprised in the least when I came to know through some obscure web site (of questionable reliablity) that his IQ was tagged at 160!

And from the very same web site: Einstein–165, Newton–175, Darwin–180, Kasparov–180, and well the most intelligent public figures were Sharon Stone–150, Hillary Clinton–140, and Madonna–140 😉

Here (click) is a list of IQs of famous people with figures quite different from what I have quoted in this post, but interesting (and equally dubious) nonetheless.

Those are HUGE numbers! In all likelihood, the most intelligent grown up you would have ever personally known would have it less than 160!

As you could see I have rambled a lot, leaping from one idea to the next remotely connected one. But then I had to justify post’s title, also! 😉

@ Vishwas:I hope, you didn't miss the link on amazing facts about dreams! 😛 It's really interesting, so had to share it on my blog!And you know IQ of 120 is pretty good. I don't know if you've an idea of statistical concepts like standard deviation and natural distribution or not. But the mean IQ is exactly 100. So, an IQ of 120 would imply you are one-fifth more intelligent than your age as determined by you birth year (chronological age). That's very good. And so you are more than one standard deviation above the mean. Usual standard deviation in various studies ranges from 12 to 20. You'd fall close to a percentile of 90, which basically means, you'd be the most intelligent person among any 10 random people.But the concept of IQ is somewhat overrated, too, more so in light of the fact that it does not measure 'soft skills' like when and how to smile, which could be very important in, for instance, becoming the President of a country. 😛 No but seriously, in fields where interaction with people is involved, having an IQ just above the average helps a lot, otherwise the potential customers/clients/readers/audiences get awed and bugged! One of the reasons Einstein is such a popular scientist is 'cuz he'd tried to reach out to the common man. When he gives analogy for special relativity of finding time difficult to pass sitting on a hot pan, as compared to talking to pretty woman, he's actually making utter mockery of his own theory, with no semblance of truth.But that helped him reach out to common people. Any random person would think–"Hey kewl, the theory is THAT simple! I'm not that stupid, after all, and ALMOST AS SMART AS THE EINSTEIN!"as against"Utter fucking crap! What the hell is THAT supposed to mean! Smart-app bastard thinks he can mumble a few crappy words like space-time and relativity and get into science text books! I bloody hate science!" So basically, Einstein also had soft skills! 😉 …

…In that list in the previous post, all the scientists were equally intelligent with equally significant contributions to science, but hardly any of them is as famous as Einstein! They did not have/use soft skills. For pop science, quantum physics is as interesting as relativity, but nobody knows about it. Why? 'cuz Einstein was the most influential physicist of that time and, he'd hated quantum physics!!! Also possibly, Neils Bohr did not have sway among people comparable to Einstein's. :(My IQ from various sources was:1. 119 (lowest) and 142 (highest) at various instance, on highiqsociety.org website. They've one of the best IQ tests. Not reliable, but engaging.2. Facebook–something in 140's and another, 155.3. Orkut–137 and 148 (the ceiling of this test was 152; meaning one just cannot get an IQ above that).4. From a very old self-testing book–165.5. The only time it was tested professionally, just before I was to turn 9 'cuz my class teacher (and somewhat, dad) suspected I was mentally retarded(!), the psychiatrist's nurse had off hand told my mental age was of 15. So don't know the exact IQ, but taking her words for it, it comes around to 167.Would get it tested someday, professionally! :PTC.@ dyanna: Did you read the post, or anything on this blog at all, for that matter? If you did, thanks a lot! And if you did not, then I've inadvertently returned the favor by incrementing the incredibly humongous number of visits to your profile by 1. TC.

Oh no I didn't miss the link! Its funny I was not very fascinated ! I'm just plain weird you must be thinking right now! 😛 Thanks for sharing it anyway!Yes I did my bachelor degree in Industrial Engineering and Management which basically tortured us with truck loads of statistical concepts for two years! Hahhahaha I am the most intelligent among 10 random people! Man you really cracked up with that one! Lol Oh yeah I know interpersonal skills is my forte! But sometimes I do have male periods which causes unpredictable mood swings! Of course I don't bleed! 😛 Lol But otherwise I do manage to make friends/chat up with strangers at bars but unfortunately most of them happen to be men and only a few are women and unfortunately I've not succeeded in taking even a single chick home! 😛 LOl I'm not surprised that nurse and your somewhat dad thought you were mentally retarded! Lol Hahahaha man you must be a unique specimen! Of course I've a few friends who share the same traits as you! Lol

Vishwas,I personally suspect your IQ must be somewhat higher than 120, but my suspicion doesn't count for much! ;)When and how did you get your IQ tested?Regarding chicks, try to go down to their intellectual level, before they go down! 😛 You might succeed! And *statistically speaking* it also means none of the chicks were successful enough to get YOU to their houses… oh wait, you didn't say that, right? ;)And well, I thought 90th percentile should pretty much stand for what I was trying to convey, or did I say something wrong? 😦 You see, we weren't tortured with biostatistics *that* much! :PI think in Maharashtra the corresponding course is known as 'production engineering', but not sure.And it was not the nurse, but my class teacher who felt, I was retarded. Nurse was merely conveying the test result.And as you could see from my response to dyanna above, I'm totally screwed when it comes to public relations. No wonder now, she's not going to come to my room, now 😦 I should've been more 'inviting'. 😦 What do you say of her PR? I mean visit her profile, and see the number of profile visits before commenting back!Ultra-LOL @ male periods! TC.PS: He is my dad who somewhat suspected; and not somewhat my dad who suspected! 😉

Hahaha I'm flattered! Thanks! 😛 Oh well I took a test online I think and this was like about a year or so ago! Yeah well whether me taking THEM to my house or vice-versa, I've not had any luck at all!!:P Lol Don't keep your hopes too high mister! You don't even know Dyanna!! 😛 Well Dyanna is a woman so obviously her hormones attract a lot of attention by default! Our hormones give out attention we don't seek attention! Get that!?? 😛 LolWhat never heard of male periods? 😛 Lol Oh dear thank god! I misread it ! My bad! 😛 Lol

Vishwas,If the frequency with which you type LOL is any indication of how much you actually LOL, then no wonder, you've been suffering from lung problems!I think most online tests tend to somewhat underestimate IQ for nonEnglish speaking people, especially, if they would have general knowledge and trivia questions!Whereas, this highiqsociety.org has trivia questions from mathematics! You must try it someday. It's really good.About the chick thing it's all about percepting. Start acting all haughty and important and telling yourself you'll relinquish your virginity to only the worthiest of them all, and see, how suddenly you'll start all chicks as ones to be roasted on frying pans to be given a taste of special theory of relativity. Plus, you could make interesting conversation with them while roasting, and ask if they're feeling as if time is moving 'fast' or slow for 'them'. If they say, fast, it means they're enjoying it, and you should turn up the flame, and make your conversation less interesting. If they say slow, turn the flame low, and make your conversation more interesting. Continue this titration, till a point where she starts feeling 'normal'. That would be your version of Special Theory of Relativity for Dummy Chicks. And you never know, you could win the Nobel Prize in Literature! :PAlso most definitely, see the uncyclopedia links on left sidebar. You'll surely love them.Dyanna is a lovely person. I'm going to nominate her for Nobel Peace Prize for leaving me speechless for a few moments! 😛 Though, she managed to induce a response mediated by hormones with an entirely different set of actions that you might be thinking! :PDo see the uncyclopedia links for sure.TC.

Once I came across this website where you take the IQ test and if its more than 120, you can be a part of their club or something like that.I missed by 2 points. :DSad.Although I think you are correct in saying that IQ is overrated.Guess Jessica Simpson's IQ! (IQ can't be negative, can it? :P)

Srishti,How ironic! Even someone as dream-y as you was fascinated more by the IQ part of the post! :(I think there are two Jessicas–Alba and Simpson! Honestly, no idea who's more intelligent (or chick-ni, for that matter) than the other. In fact if you show me their pics, I won't be able to say which one is who! But I guess Simpson is much older of the two. Basically, all the celebrities have a somewhat higher IQ, especially Hollywood actors. So, according to me hers should be 125-135?Oh technically (my 'technique, of course! 😛 ), if someone starts behaving as if they are an unborn child, i.e., fetus (which would entail keeping the eyes closed, crying to convey anything, smiling at just about anyone, sleeping 18 hours a day–see if any of the Bollywood actresses fits the bill!), then their mental age (numerator) would be negative, and so would be the IQ!Don't trust those IQ sites much! Just that their questions are interesting sometimes! One of the facebook tests was good. I think one was to solve it in 15 min.Thanks for dropping by!TC.

Arrey, the Dream-list link wouldn't open yesterday so I commented on the IQ part. But now that I did check out the dream link, these facts are AWESOME. Especially the one about Epic Dreams. There are many instances where the author had a dream about a story and he wrote about it and it became a bestseller.Also, my dad told me that the subconscious mind is very powerful. There have also been instances with scientists and mathematicians where the answer wouldn't come to them when they were awake but they thought about it constantly and bam! Their subconscious gave them the solution when they were sleeping.Also, Jessica Simpson's IQ absolutely CANNOT be 125. The girl is a typical Blonde. Slowness personified. Or something like that.Cheerio!

Srishti,How weird can things get!When you asked me her IQ, I thought it must be incredibly high like 180 or 190-something. So immediately after posting my prior comment, I googled for–'Jessica Simpson IQ'. And I was somewhat shocked to find stories doing round that her IQ is 160! But the website that has compiled links of famous people's IQs, and whose link I've provided in the post, clarified that it is mostly a hoax propagated by her mom. But ironically, MENSA, a high IQ-society had engaged her to do a promotional campaign for them! She is not a MENSA-member, but another article also claimed that both she and Paris Hilton actually play dumb to pass off with stupid antics. And I find it quite possible. :)And please don't say (and more importantly, think) "typical blonde". It's just like any other communal stereotyping, like typical Sardar, or typicaly gujju, etc., none of which actually hold true 😉 Oh okay, maybe except for 'the typicaly girl', all of who are like the one in the pink chaddis-post? ;)Glad, you liked the links on dreams. Your dad is very right about the power of subconscious. I can only add that we can bring some elements of subconscious into the domain of conscious through introspection and dispassionate observation, and therein lies the greatness of Sigmund Freud in having done that for the first time. You might gain something from the following post on Garima's blog:http://idiopathicallyconfused.blogspot.com/2009/04/eternal-conflict.htmlTC.

@ Wise donkey:"not many blogs stun me.."I don't know if my blog let you be at peace or stunned you 🙂 but either ways, thanks for commenting!And yes, that was the whole point that I used to think of the Nobels as the ultimate testimony of a person's greatness. Not that what I think of the Nobel Prize or the laureates, makes a difference to to how I view myself, but it definitely had made difference to my personal aspirations.Take care.@Quirky Indian:You are very right and that's what I'd precisely pointed out, that this prize has only served to lower its perceived credibility–for some people for the first time, and for others, yet again.And see, this issue is also tied to what I wanted to you to opine on. That subsequent generations will look at Obama as great statesman partly because of his winning the Nobel irrespective of the actual outcome of his policies and efforts. And another piece of crap doing the rounds is Obama was unaware that he had been nominated by his administration!And the issues I raised, please don't feel too pressurized to answer them, as I understand they are tied more to emotional aspects rather than that of pure reasoning.Thanks! TC.

Hahaha Lol Yes it is an indication of how much I actually Lol! 😛 No in fact Loling regularly keeps my lungs clog-free! 😛 Lol I'm not sure about the IQ tests that are available online or in any other format. Is there like a standard procedure or something?Well I'll try the trivia questions when I am sure that I am actually intelligent! 😛 By the way, what do you mean by percepting? Yes that's actually true, giving them credit sincerely makes them grow horns! Lol Hahahah I just don't want to lose my virginity until I turn 40! 😛 Lol You know a 40 year old man virgin is like rare wine,scotch! They are highly valued and desired! 😛 So I'll let my spunk f[sp]erment away for another 15 years! Lol And sure yeah I just might win the Nobel prize for literature! Lol :PYes I did check uncyclopedia! Its pretty darn wicked! 😛 Oh I feel bad to break this to you, but your flirting skills suck! 😛 Work on it bro! :PYes its very wicked! If it were a legitimate business/organization I would die to work for them! Lol

According to me I think this one is the most wicked thing in the entire list! Or perhaps that's the only I could instantly identify with! Lol :P1982 Taj Mahal for being the biggest dick ever erectioned for a woman.!!!Lol

Hi KetanMy husband is one of those very clever people with a very high IQ – I believe he was in the 99.997th percentile when tested (I'm not sure which test though). But just hanging out with him daily, you would not have a clue about it (except when he does one of his very detailed analyses on a given topic – when the sharpness of his observation and analysis takes my breath away).Dreams are so fascinating. Having 2 young children means that we spend a lot of time discussing good / bad dreams, what they could mean and why we have them. I try to explain it terms of the brain 'flexing' at the end of the day and dealing with any outstanding issues. i tried to explain the concept of synaptic pruning…but that was a bit too much, too early for my babies! I used to have the most violent and vivid dreams in my early-adulthood. I was always being shot or beaten or attacked in some way. That only stopped after my children were born and I found some peace in life. But the best dream I ever had was close to the Melbourne Cup (a well-known horse race in Australia). In my dream, I heard a voice say, "An Indian curry will win the Melbourne Cup!" Strange right? Especially since I am not a big racing fan. Anyway, a week later when I saw the field for the Melbourne Cup, I was thrilled to see a horse named 'Rogan Josh' in the race. I put some money on him and he actually won!! Sadly, that never happened again.Thanks for a thought provoking post yet again! S

Sorry am flooded with work so can't go through the links… Just wanted to point out that as per a test, my IQ stood at 133 🙂 It's at least in the league of Bill Clinton 😉 Maybe that explains my obsession with oral care 🙂

@ Wise Donkey:Thanks a lot, ma'am! Despite being a vegetarian, I might have been 'fish'ing for a compliment by asking you! 😉 Actually, have been keeping very busy. Am sure to visit your blog in some time. Had gone through the first link. It's nice, but it just made me fear that the girl's parents should not impose too much unrequired learning on her trying to 'tap' her potential. When this is done, the child, figuratively speaking, 'loses' childhood, and also everything they do starts revolving around praise from others, thus, somewhat losing their independent thinking.Thanks for your tip on how to avoid frightening dreams. And though, I don't have that problem, it might work, too, basically if we are to resolve a tangible problem, that might be there. Thanks, again!TC.@ Vishwas:I'm not sure if there is a standard procedure or not, but in the "old" book I'd mentioned, I'd read that just like GRE, each new question that is ever asked in a test, should be given to a very large sample size whose IQ is already known. Then its difficulty level is determined by how many people could solve it, and what were the lowest and median IQs that enabled the subjects to answer it. So, I don't think those web site people do any of that. Plus, for native English speakers, those questions on verbal analogy would be much simpler than for nonEnglish-speaking. Thus, Indians' IQ would be shown to be lower than actual!…

…"percepting" was a typo intended to be perceiving, and I'd pointed that out immediately in the next comment, fearing your backlash and pink chaddis! :PLOL @ your spermentation. Actually I just read, if sperm stay for long time in the 'tubes', then the older ones start secreting chemicals that kill the newer ones. But that's actually a good thing unless you're planning to procreate to its illogical end, i.e., making a human female produce a child! 😛"Grow horns"? So that would make them feel horn-y? Imagine the beauty of alliteration, the rhyme, the magic, when you'd call your chick 'horny honey'! LOL! I know my flirting skills have got outdated. Will have to ho(r)ne them with the next open source upgrade available! :PArrey the contributors of uncyclopedia are normal people like you and me. Oh sorry, not 'normal' 😛 okay, I mean, they write only out of pleasure; you too can contribute. :)And don't bother about the things I asked you to read, till you complete at least FH or AS, and do a post on it! 😛 But I'd very highly recommend your going through the uncyclopedia links in my left sidebar. They're good and fun!TC.@Sioneve:99.997 percentile!!!!!!!!!!!!! <–I rarely deliberately indulge in grammatical blasphemy, but then this once it was absolutely called for!I checked, it 4 standard deviations above the mean, which would mean an IQ of at least 148 and a max. of 180!! Well that's very, very, very, very high!…

…What's his profession if you don't mind?But you know actually, at such higher ranges, IQs turn out to be very unreliable simply because both 'mental age' and 'percentile' are statistical terms, and the sample size at that extreme is very little to make comparisons and to calibrate! :)I won't say I know neurology well, but it's like solar opposite of psychology. Also don't know if you've had the opportunity to go through Freud's ideas. But I'd highly recomment The interpretation of dreams. Or at least going through articles related to him on Wikipedia. His ideas would give you answers to many questions we ask in life, and at least a bit about dreams. I'd read somewhere that intelligence is 80% heritable, so *that* should explain your 7 year-old's extraordinary intelligence! :PThat was an interesting occurrence of the horse race! Sadly, almost all the respondents either forgot to go through the links in the post, or did not find them that fascinating! And very honestly, I did not realize this would turn out to be such a thought-provoking post for everyone! This was quite an impulsive post on my part largely to share some trivia with the readers! I think readers like trivia more than my ideas! :PThanks for reading and commenting! BTW, I'd responded to your comment on 'Residua'.TC.

@ Ambi:Yes, I certainly remember. But it's not odd, precisely because we were discussing only those issues that very few people do in their daily lives, and certainly the bases, impl and origins of dreams are certainly one of those. 🙂 Did you go through the links? How did you find them? Thanks! TC.@ Rakesh:133 is a very good IQ. And didn't come as a surprise considering your great sense of humor, which BTW, is a very good indicator of someone's intelligence, ('cuz the brain requires to do a lot of parallel processing of thoughts) and your meticulous analysis of issues (which you unfortunately do exceedingly rarely in your posts 😦 ). I've got to say you've got a very right combination of intelligence and optimally chilled attitude to enjoy life to the fullest! 🙂 So, go enjoy to the fullest your heavy workload! :PActually, the links on dreams and IQ of celebrities, I thought were much more interesting than my post itself!LOL@ oral care! ;)Thanks! TC.

Ketan,I remember reading somewhere on Freud that most of his ideas have been held to be scientifically incorrect. Is it true?On to this IQ, I believe it has very little significance practically. My personal view has been that true intelligence is rarely reflected in these tests.Cheers

Y'know, I've read bits of The Interpretation of Dreams, too! And I was quite overwhelmed, so I stopped, and read Freud's biography The Passions of the Mind (which I totally recommend btw, altho it takes many months to read!), instead. Both the books left quite an impression on me..Freud was pretty incredibly brilliant!! And ego-defense mechanisms were kinda Anna Freud's contribution! Not many know that..And yay yay yay! I'm smarter than Sharon Stone atleast, my IQ is 151! Hahaaa..what happiness!:D

But you know, GS is right..IQ is hardly ever a predictor of real potential, success or happiness is life..in fact, an IQ of greater than 150 is found in as many as 1 in 450 people..but you see, we only ever learn retrospectively about people who accomplished so much..

Hello, Saimukundhan!I'm not an authority on psychology (or anything, for that matter!), but the basic ideas of Sigmund Freud have stood the test of time. His idea of id, ego and superego are the cornerstone of psychology.Actually psychiatric diseases can be understood at at least three levels. It would be difficult for me to give you an analogy. But let me try:You see that one of your light bulbs has stopped working. The most general idea of how light bulb works for a lay person is this:Level 1: I put on a light switch. Electric current makes the light bulb glow! If I see a broken coiled thing (filament), then it's to replace the bulb!Level 2:I put on the light switch, electric current passes through the coiled filament. Heat is generated as current encounters electrical resistance (analogous to mechanical friction). Heated filament produces light. If the filament is broken circuit would not be completed, there would be no heat generation, and there would be no light.Level 3:Electrical current passes through the filament. The individual atoms start vibrating, but remaining at the same place. Their cumulative kinetic energy is what is heat. And the greater it, greater is the temperature. At higher temperature electrons jump to much more outer orbitals, and on returning back, emit electromagnetic radiation, which if of wavelength between 400 to 700 nanometer, would be visible to our eye. This is what we call 'light'.If the atoms acquire further energy, they'll start moving from their location. This would externally be seen as 'softening' of something that was solid (very hard). But when the degree of freedom increases too much, many tungsten atoms would leave their positions, and they'd assume a new state–liquid! The circuit will now 'break'!You may or may not understand everything that I've written above, but would definitely be able to make out that with each higher level the depth of understanding was greater. Depending upon the resources available, with greater understanding we can provide better solutions from problems. For instance, by knowing that to produce light all that is needed is to push the electrons out to higher energy levels, we could produce sources that did that by transferring more energy to individual electrons rather than the atoms that contained them! This is what our fluorescent tubes are!…

…And since they wouldn't impart much energy to the atoms, they wouldn't produce heat!I would say that Freud carried our understanding from level 1 to 2.Now see what would a person with respective levels of knowledge do:Level 1–throw the light bulb! Get a new one! This corresponds to neglect of those suffering from psychiatric diseases, and torturing them. Thinking of them as waste and burden to the society.Level 2–Trying to make better light bulbs. This is what Freud had attempted. He provided qualitative concepts ego and superego, but not how they come about. These correspond to concepts like electrical current, which is purely qualitative unless and until one recognizes that current is a flow of electrons! So Freud did not explain how our mind is 'wired', as in, the nerve cells (neurons) and the gaps between them, called synapses across which they communicate. But his greatness lies in the fact that he could come up with such qualitative concepts. Obviously since his understanding was quite superficial he had made sweeping generalizations, applicable to a vast majority. What gives the impression of his going wrong is his theories not working in a few exceptions. Also, with our understanding at level 3 now (neuronal connections and chemicals acting as mediators–neurotransmitters), Freud's concepts seem to simplistic and abstract.Level 3–An entirely new technology could be developed–fluorescent light source! But then this takes time and immense resources!And just because we today have fluorescent light, it does not mean we can forget the greatness of Edison! So this idea that chemicals are responsible for our precious emotions and can alter them was quite revolutionary. It also required to breach another mental barrier. But the basic problem is that we cannot yet make drugs (chemicals) reach the 'right' neurons in the brain. Whenever we would be able to accomplish that, majority of brain disorder would be permanently treated, and Freud would become totally redundant (and wrong!)But the strongest reason you'll find criticism level against Freud is not of academic nature, but is owing to cultural conditioning. He had implied that there's no difference between the nature of attraction felt by a baby towards its mother and sexual attraction felt by grown up people! So these ideas were culturally unacceptable! Since, baby's love is 'pure', but sexual attraction required to produce such babies is 'impure'!…

…I think this much explanation should be sufficient, why Freud's theories are considered to be largely incorrect now! :)BTW, level 2 here is psychology, and level 3 is neurology. With greater advancement in science few more levels would be added. 🙂IQ:I don't know what you meant by 'intelligence'. If you meant wisdom or presence of mind, then I would agree that these tests are very indicative.But a lot also depends on the design of tests. Ironically, the test administered by the Pune chapter of Mensa was really crappy. [Disclaimer: I had given the test and was placed at 90 percentile of the population, not getting selected by a HUGE margin. That comes to an IQ of around 115.] It was a written test, and the 'consultant' psychologist who had come to greet us did not know of what was standard deviation! That was a WTF-moment for me! How could someone administer an IQ test without knowing about STANDARD DEVIATION?!!! Whereas, when I was tested individually in an interview in class fourth, mostly my IQ was above 160. And no one gets demented to that extreme degree!Among all my friends that I know, I've always been correct in predicting whose IQ would be greater between any of the two!Unfortunately, many IQ tests are crappy business strategies. A well-designed IQ test would test at least 6 aspects of intelligence. And scoring would be based not only on how many questions are answered correctly, but also on how much time is taken and also considering their 'relative difficulty'. If all those criteria are fulfilled, then the test does serve as a pretty good indicator of basic intelligence. But I would like to clarify here that intelligence does not have complete correlation with worldly success. Kindly see my response to Vishwas with regard to comparison with Einstein and Neils Bohr here (click).Also, a lot of factors go into determining what one does with that intelligence. There are a few who write Uncyclopedia articles, remaining totally obscure, but none with an IQ of less than 140! And a few go 'full throttle' for worldly fame. :)Sorry for such long replies, but both the issues you'd raised could not have been dealt with only in a few sentences.Thanks a lot for taking time for commenting!TC.

Hello TUIB!I too had stopped at the point where he had started discussing actual case studies. I too was overwhelmed, in the sense, some of his correlations had seemed bizarre. And also 'cuz I felt I was not in a position to predict the interpretations simply 'cuz I wouldn't know the complete history of the subject! But most important, I stopped precisely because the book was too engaging. Ah, the ironies of life! :(Well I did know that it was Anna Freud who actually came up with the term 'ego defense', and classified them into three levels, also adding a few (especially, the more 'normal' and nature ones). But, it was Sigmund who came out with the concept of ego that needed to be defended from environmental stressors. And that subconscious stresses countered by inappropriate-to-the situation-defences lead to psychiatric manifestations. :)I think in that link in the post, Sharon Stone's IQ has been quoted to be 154! As such, I can partly guess but when and how did you get your IQ tested? Was it an online test or an interview in person?You might find my history with IQ tests interesting! That's in my initial responses to Vishwas above. ;)I would definitely say that IQ is a very good indicator of 'potential' of a person, but not whether that potential would be realized or not! I would at this point have to recommend Atlas Shrugged to you, to give you an indication of 'why?'Also, a large portion of my response to GS addresses this issue only.And please do read the link I've provided of my response to Vishwas where I've compared Neils Bohr's approach to life with Einstein's. :)To your point of IQ of 150, I'd also like to point out that there are many 'great' people who had much lower IQs! Pun on 'great' is simply because my belief that perceived greatness has largely been about propaganda recently got further reinforced!Thanks for your ideas!TC.

Man,That response was rambling! But made more sense than the post (obviously). On Freud, I was just posting something from my memory. And I have always been skeptical of the IQ test, though I am not able to put any reasons for that (due to lack of IQ?) One of the online test I took gave me a score of around 138 or 139.Cheers

Well, it was measured three years ago by the Stanford-Binet test..it had some 11 subtests related to verbal, cognitive, factual, memory, spatial thinking and such like..my dad's a psychiatrist so he thought it'd be cool for me to take it..this psychologist felly administered it..I remember she didnt think very highly of me till she saw the results shaping up..:Danyways, it came out 151 then, but thats not absolute it'll prolly change by around 10 points now and then..remarkably the facebook and the google iq tests give me 149 and 153..so that averages out again..havent taken any others online till u told me about the highiqsociety test..apparently they dont think very highly of me either..i scored just 146..but then i had no clue what a complex manifold surface was, or who'd gotten to world cup soccer finals, or what anti-symmetrisation of tensor product meant! 😀 I think I must admit my defeat to Sharon Stone..hahaaa..Wow, ur own IQ history indicates u're pretty up there with the big guys! ;)Not really such a good indicator of potential either..unless we admit that most ppl are incapable of realising their full potentials anyway..

Sai,To be honest, I know I type comments that are too lengthy! 🙂 But maybe, I enjoy that. I hope, I do make some points also in those comments. 🙂 And when I know it's you reading those comments at the other end, it's too difficult to resist! ;)Regarding IQ tests, I'd only like to state that just like how it's inappropriate to 'communalize' people, it is wrong to club together all IQ tests! By which I mean, one should distinguish between a well designed test, and crappy ones that abound the net. I'd come across only one well designed IQ-test on the net, but that too didn't give me a result as I was required to pay for it!I think I've laid out the criteria for a good IQ test, too. And they're very few. :)Also I did not indicate that IQ tests guarantee a person's success. Someone who takes to narcotics or crime, would not be seen as successful in the conventional sense. Also those with very high IQ are bound to be less motivated to put in hardwork (at least in India) as the daily mundane affairs, and education system would not challenge their intellect enough.Is there something you intended to indicate through your measured IQ of 139? Believe me, it is a very, very good IQ, though I personally suspect it should be around 145 for you (at least). Some of the famous personalities' scores are inflated to sensationalize.You can do one thing. I know it would be silly, but select two people you know well, such that one is definitely less intelligent than you, and the other definitely more so. Now, get your IQs tested professionally, say by a psychologist. Then compare the results. In all likelihood, the IQs will be in the same order as you'd have guessed the intelligence! And don't get angry at me for giving such ideas! Do that only when you have sufficient time! My obsession with IQ tests partly stems from the fact that they're entertaining!Also, repeatedly solving the same set of questions is not the way to go about IQ tests! Obviously, you'll score higher with each subsequent attempt! Good IQ tests also eliminate this flaw of favoring those who'd have solved a certain type of questions priorly.I repeat most of the online tests are crappy! I'll give you a prime example of one such test. Will take you just over 10 min.Here (click)I attempted it four times in all (thrice–in a span of an hour). First time I got 132….

…Second time, I altered 2 out of 38 questions, but marked all of them very fast out of memory, like within 2 min, and I got 126! I mean I got less despite solving the questions much faster. And the fact that a difference of only 2 questions made such a huge difference to the final score! A good test should not be so sensitive to a difference of few questions. It should make allowances for silly mistakes.The third time, I marked all the questions same as on first instance, except the last one, which I realized I'd got wrong the first time around–again all out of memory. The score was 141! The fourth time taking a bit more time I got 138. These are very low scores! Simply because I must have got almost all questions correct, and marked them all within 2 min (out of memory). The most intelligent person in entire history of mankind would take at least 4 min to do that without knowing the answers priorly (even simply reading the questions would take at least 3 min, forget, calculating!). Even if I were to assume I got a couple of questions wrong, that should be compensated for by my talking simply two min to mark all answers! So basically, the ceiling of this test was at the most 145! It is suitable for average range of IQ, but not higher. A ceiling of 145 is very low, indeed!I took another test (click). I suspect its ceiling is 162, or maybe 165.Again this is somewhat a low ceiling for higher end IQs–falls below that of most of the high-IQ people given in that link in the post! My original score in it was 147.For the first linked test (with 38 questions), I'm reproducing my responses here. Do let me know if yours differ from mine. That way we can reach the answer key for the test:1. T2. T3. F4. T5. T6. T7. T8. T; but here I have a doubt, too. Like, if the second instance of quane in the sentence, makes it sound 'bad', but not sure if it amounts to grammatically 'wrong'. Okay, I think it is to be marked false.9. T10. T11. T12. T13. F; it is e14. F15. T16. F17. T18. F19. F20. F; hand and finger cannot be connected together21. F; saturday is 6th day22. F23. F; he would be 3 blocks away24. F; but not sure if 'road' would be taken as opposite of or synonymous with 'street'. If opposite, then answer would be true.25. T26. T27. T28. F29. T30. F; 3231. T32. F33. F; 6234. T…

Again this is somewhat a low ceiling for higher end IQs–falls below that of most of the high-IQ people given in that link in the post! My original score in it was 147.For the first linked test (with 38 questions), I'm reproducing my responses here. Do let me know if yours differ from mine. That way we can reach the answer key for the test:1. T2. T3. F4. T5. T6. T7. T8. T; but here I have a doubt, too. Like, if the second instance of quane in the sentence, makes it sound 'bad', but not sure if it amounts to grammatically 'wrong'. Okay, I think it is to be marked false.9. T10. T11. T12. T13. F; it is e14. F15. T16. F17. T18. F19. F20. F; hand and finger cannot be connected together21. F; saturday is 6th day22. F23. F; he would be 3 blocks away24. F; but not sure if 'road' would be taken as opposite of or synonymous with 'street'. If opposite, then answer would be true.25. T26. T27. T28. F29. T30. F; 3231. T32. F33. F; 6234. T35. T; 8 even numbers in all, so their sum would be even36. F; 21 handshakes37. F; at the most 7 areas; but haven't actually tried drawing on paper!38. F; only 4 doors can be crossed.Okay, as I type this I attempted the first test yet again with the above marking scheme (F as answer for question 8). And the score I got was 151. So, absolute ceilings for the first and second tests are 155 and 165. Can we consider such tests reliable? Absolutely not! At least not for the somewhat higher range.And I could not get what you meant by your closing sentence–"And I guess you know what I mean by referring them."TC.

Arrey TUIB, I did not expect at least you to take those quoted figures for celebrities seriously. I've clearly stated in my post that those figures are entirely unreliable.And do you know, 151 is extremely high IQ!If you get time, please do go through the Wikipedia article on Stanford-Binet test. It's into its fourth edition. Their sample size was 4,800 (click), and standard deviation was 15. Let's see what this entails:The most intelligent person in the sample would be 99.979 [100 – (100/4800)] percentile. This corresponds to 3.5 standards deviations (see the table in the linked section). What is 3.5 times 15? 152.5! You know no, what that means? That's the ceiling of that test! It is incapable of measuring a higher IQ! TUIB, you literally broke the IQ-scale!That's why I'd stressed in the post that the quoted IQs of those celebrities were too high. I'm not implying that someone cannot have an IQ greater than that of 152, but Stanford-Binet would be incapable of doing that.With that score you could qualify for triple 9 society! What more do you want?And do you understand what it means to be best in some parameter among 5k people? Are you the tallest, heaviest, or fastest (runner) among random 5k people?A lot in what you say depends on how you define 'realizing' of potential. Is it winning the Nobel Prize, alone? Or getting famous? What if people around serve as impediments of growth precisely because of your intelligence? In how many spheres of life is intelligence the only factor or even required? ;)TC.

Haha! I was just having a little fun with Sharon Stone there..its kinda cool to think the woman who got famous for Basic Instinct knows about Reimann surfaces and grunions and such.. :DI thought that IQ wasnt all that high since they told me 1 out of 450 random people wud have the same score. And since there's like 6 billion of us, that doesnt make me very unique..The Stanford-Binet test has sample-size limitations..but then thats coz the sample size of people at the higher end of the scale is really tiny.. You see, I'm making the same point you are. Thats precisely why intelligence quotient is hardly an indicator of potential. You dont even need to be intelligent to be good at a lot of things. By intelligent, I mean the kind of intelligence these silly tests measure..This turned out to be a fun post with all that came up for discussion..you shud really do more of these spur-of-the-moment ones! 🙂

TUIB,I thought Basic Instinct was a somewhat intelligent movie, yes sure, there were distractions that would make it seem otherwise! 😉 But those distractions also had an intelligent symbolism in their own way!I'd recommended the High IQ society site only because their questions were more challenging and interesting than others!How did you find those short term memory questions with 16 squares in yellow, white, blue? Somehow, I'm never able to do those. :(The results of (good) IQ tests are to be taken with a pinch of salt, but not totally disregarded in my opinion. It'd be pointless to try to compare potential to contribute intelligently of two people with measured IQs of 160 and 180, simply 'cuz IQ-measurement in that range is unreliable, and also as for practical purposes how their minds would work would not be very different.But I'm very sure, you could make out perceptible difference between approaches to various situations of persons with IQs, say 90 and 160.Those with higher IQ, because they can understand cause-and-effect-relationships better, can more likely work out solutions to many problems, and that to faster. And again because of better understanding, and comfort with concepts involved, they are more likely to innovate. But whether actually do all that or not, would largely depend upon what social feedback do they get–reward or penalty?There is one post where I've always wanted you to comment, but somehow always fail to get you to do so! :)It's a really short post, would take 7-8 min to read at most. In light of what I've written, what accomplishment in my life would qualify as realization of my potential? That is a very genuine, and most significant doubt I have about my own life.The post (click)And the most important thing, did you read that list of ten interesting things about dreams? 😉 Most of the readers missed the point that this post was primarily to share those links. 😦 This is what happens when I ramble. The point is lost!And a very special thanks to you for so many well-thought and insightful comments on this post. It's after going through your comments again I realized, not just my blog, but even I was missing your comments! :)I really value sincere comments. I'd honestly not thought this post, which I've also tagged as 'trivia' would invoke such discussion/debate :)TC.